Only his quick hands and blind heart keep faith
from petrifying. Thoughts of her, flecks, slabbered
in her turning, colour his act, giddy instability
steadied in two dimensions. Heartbreak
swallowed with black black coffee to silt
the childlike tremor of fear, waiting for tinctures’
lifting, a lullaby of hope to help him sleepwalk
through the shovelling out of love, dark soil
whose rootings must be grubbed up, rendered.
There is no cure for abandonment, merely distraction.
Work. Gripped, blunged, fusing he to her in the scumbling
of paint. She left no rib, so nails, knife and bristle
must do his making. Too realistic and her suasive presence
raws the heart, too abstract and it is hued oil
no more. In the middle ground there is no fore
or after, just this, an emerging disappearance
lying in threshold’s folds, finger dipped tracing
shaping his ceaseless longing into a version of her.
Simon Parker is a London based writer, performer and teacher. He is an associate artist of Vocal Point Theatre, a theatre company dedicated to telling stories from those not often heard, and providing workshops for the marginalised. He also runs creative writing and reading groups for the homeless and socially excluded.